


To wake an ancient god

by writing_is_hard



Series: Prayers of the damned [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, secrets and lies, winning the apocalypse has consequences
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_is_hard/pseuds/writing_is_hard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'</p><p>What's the worst thing that can happen when you go to fight the Devil?<br/> <br/> <br/> <br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The ghost town

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a re-write project of "Opportunity knocked twice" by ohjustdiarmmealready (may she live forever). We worked together, but she got bored, and I got obsessed. Whatever you find matching in our stories, it was hers before! *bows respectfully*
> 
> Also, bits and pieces of this story are beta'ed to hell and back by so many people (*bows respectfully one more time*), while the others are not beta'ed at all, because there is only so much patience we can all try out of each other.

 

CHAPTER ONE: The Ghost Town

 

 

September 2003

 

This whole thing started trivial. Well, in some ways. The first thing that went wrong was food.

They came here on a simple salt and burn, young woman dragged to a back alley and bestially murdered on her way home – now apparently wondering the streets, appearing to the passers-by. There weren’t even any victims; they just wanted to ease her on – stop her before she drops the first body, and maybe, hopefully, cut her suffering short. Dean saw the crime scene photos. Whoever did this, they better be far fucking away when he learns their names.       

Still, the urge to destroy a not-so-innocent human being aside, it was a pretty straightforward hunt. Nothing very special about it: just another tragedy, another ghost, another body to burn. Dirty, sad job – but simple.

So at lunch time, Dean had gotten out to track down the nearest diner.

Every hunter needs to eat.

They only just started – talked to a few passers-by, the sheriff, the deputy. It went down seamlessly – Dad could pull of world-weary detective in his sleep. Dean had his role down, too: he loved being the rookie protégé with more than a little crazy in his mind. It let him ask all the weird questions that a detective wouldn’t, flirt with girls, be rude and unsettling and generally have fun weirding people out for the sake of good.

It was a tactic they used a lot: Dad as The Serious Man, Dean as Mulder Junior. It used to be Sammy as The Backup, too, or when he got older and refused to stay behind, The One That Talks With The Kids Around – but, well. Sammy had different things to do these days.

That diner was what, five minutes away?

Five to get back, maybe five more for exchanging a few words with the waitress – she gave him some new facts, visibly hoping for answers and reassurance – so, fifteen in total. Maybe twenty, with time for Jenna to pretend she didn’t feel like crying, and him to pretend he was going to catch the murderers of her daughter’s best friend. The job got awful, sometimes.

Twenty minutes. Definitely enough to get stabbed and bleed out – Dean had seen that happen, once, Christ, it took less than _five_ – but it shouldn’t be enough for things to fall apart in any other way.

Funny, that.

He went back mulling over the waitress’ grief, and how some men deserve to be dickless – and maybe have their lifeless tools shoved up their asses, and the wounds from the cut-off left untreated so they can bleed and fester. And, no pants. Shame was a factor, here.

When he got back with burgers and coffees, he found his dad frowning over scattered papers. “There are omens” he said, not lifting his head. “All over the place. Dating back six months.”

Dean blinked. “That’s before Celeste died.”

And just like that, nothing was simple or straightforward anymore. Food went cold untouched, to be thrown out the next morning. Such a stupid detail, but really, he should have known.

 _He should have known_ , there and then, that things were falling apart. He didn’t though.

Not yet.

*

“I saw it. Two days before she died, I saw her in that street. I saw what was done to her. Saw her body.”

That’s how it started. With omens all over the weather readings, notes scattered around their motel room, and when they started talking with the locals, they got _this_.

Dean bit lip. “You… saw all that… two days before it happened?” he asked as gently as possible. He didn’t want the woman to think he was mocking her sister’s death.

She didn’t notice. She was too shaken.

“I thought it must have been a nightmare. I wasn’t sleeping at the time, but I… I wanted so badly for it to just…” she picked at her coffee cup, avoiding their eyes. “I had nightmares… we all have nightmares,” she explained quietly. “And I just… I wanted it to be a lie…”

They sat at a café, empty at this time of the day, with the staff carefully keeping away. Not the best place to talk about your inner pain, really, but Dean knew people tended to pick that kind of places – somewhere in the _outside world_ , Dad explained once, not their home. Where they would have to live afterwards.

It was no wonder. She broke down, crying openly, and he could almost see it behind her eyes, how Celeste died, the horror of it, Lillian’s own horror, and then shock and pain when it _really_ _happened_ … and now pain and grief and shock all over again  as she relived it all.

The crime scene photos played out in his mind again. Blood pooling under the blond hair. Skin pale as an alabaster… but only where it wasn’t blue and black. Eyes closed like a proper sleeping beauty, lips parted, all those _cuts_ —

He thought about Sammy in this position.

He thought about seeing Sammy get hurt, and not knowing enough to believe it, and then finding out Sammy was gone, in a horrible, painful way, and he had known, he _had known,_ if he only, if he at least _tried_ …

“I should have done something” she said.

Dean startled. She wasn’t looking at him, though.

She rubbed at her cheeks with harsh movements, still crying, only looking more devastated for it. “I… I should have done _something_ …”

Dean swallowed. Lillian told them she drank half a bottle of whiskey after watching her sister die; Dean kind of wanted the other half.

“You said nightmares” John prompted gently. “Nightmares about Celeste?” Lillian shook her head.

“No. Nightmares about… well, anything.” She took a breath, calming down a bit. “Images you usually forget, they just… make no sense, change too quickly… sometimes you just get this déjà vu thing, something happens and you think, ‘hey, I dreamt about this’.”

Dean thought of it the same moment she did. Her face crumpled. “I should have known,” she realized. “I, I should have…”

“Lillian,” John squeezed her hand. “Calm down. Just tell us about the dreams.”

With a set expression, she nodded. Dean could see through her brave face like it was a window – but she regained enough of her composure to talk.

She licked her lips, drummed her fingers on the table nervously. “It’s the feelings that stick with you” she said. “Like… a feeling of being somewhere else. Removed, from everything.”

John nodded. (Dean nodded along with him, pretending it made sense to him, too). “And when you say ‘all’ of you have nightmares, you mean…”

“Everyone I know.”

 

Later, when Dean was thinking about that day, he would remember  Lillian’s wet cheeks and wide eyes, and then glancing at his Dad, and how his face was stony, almost unmoving. Crisis mode.

 

Dean licked his lips, throat suddenly dry. John nodded slowly.

“That would be everyone in town?”

“Yes.”

It was close to seven months, actually. They pinned it all to the wall at the motel: temperature jumping up and down, lightning strikes, storms coming out of nowhere. Between June and July, there were three snowstorms, and two hails in August. One tree was struck by lightning seven times over the weeks. In May, snow came down, covered the whole town for two weeks, and on that snow blossomed roses and violets.

Black Port, Michigan: weather on a bender, livestock going wild, _people having freaking visions._

They stood in deafening silence, looking at the board.

“How did no one notice this before?” Dean asked quietly. “How didn’t _we_ notice it before?”

John didn’t know what to say to him.

*

The first thing they did was ward the room. Heavily. The obligatory salt wasn’t enough anymore; it was time to pull out the heavy duty gear.

They hallowed it with holy water, put cleansing herbs in every corner, a thick line of runes at both door and window. Two Chinese signs Bill Harvelle used to tell drunken anecdotes about. A chalk circle as wide as the room on the floor and corresponding one at the ceiling just to be on the safe side. Wrote K + M + B on the outside of the door (a blessing and protection and a prayer, too, if a certain pastor was to be believed), then drew a pentagram circle on the inside of it, just in case something gets trough after all.

Dean helped with sure hands. He knew how to protect himself, it was the first thing his dad taught him… but when Dad went outside and came back with a large can of shoe polish – did they have that in the car? – and started painting random signs and sigils _right there on the wall_ , he faltered.

“We’re making a shield,” John told him calmly, noticing. He added another line, and then started a symbol from a different culture. “You know about shields, Dean.”

Dean nodded, and reached for the can. Yeah, he knew about shields. In theory. He hasn’t seen one since he was like, ten.

They worked in silence for several hours.

Finally John looked around – the place looked like an occult encyclopedia threw up all over it, with black marks stark and shining against the dull yellow of the walls  – but it was legit. They were safe here.

It felt like he could breathe again.

Dean sat down, already looking bored. He straightened under John’s glare.

“Sir…?”

“I’ll bring the weapons” John said gruffly.

Dean nodded obediently, wide-eyed and innocent like only he could. John huffed, turning to the door – supplies and ammo won’t carry themselves in. He stomped on the urge to tell Dean to keep inside until he got back – _boy’s not ten anymore,_ he told himself. Not that twenty four was that much more.

He marched out the door before he could follow that thought. Dean watched him go.

Mentally, John went over what they knew right now. Six – no, seven months, town-wide _at least_ , screwing with people, animals, and the fucking _weather._ Whatever this was, it was big, powerful, mind-alerting and probably deadly – and he didn’t have a fellow soldier beside him, ready to live or die in their war, or a thug he gave two shits about – he had his _son._

He needed to know what exactly they had barged into, _now._ Or better yet, seven months ago.

Fighting down irritation, he called Jim Murphy.

*

“I’m sorry, John, but this is first time I hear about something like that. Black Port never came to my attention as anything but ordinary. Or South Michigan, for that matter. I can look into it, if you wish?”

John huffed with exasperation. Did he _wish_ that Jim looks into the massive supernatural phenomenon that nobody knew about, going under their noses for months? _Please, do,_ someone polite would say.

“Do” he said shortly. “We need to figure this out. You might have better luck, with your experience.”

“I’m not that old” Jim protested mildly.

Normally John would never leave that hanging – _I’m telling you you’re good at your job, and you’re acting defensive?_ And of course, that would open the same old argument again: _my job is giving people guidance to the Lord, John._ And if John didn’t cut it quickly enough, _Not as good as I wish, either. I know you’re a firm myth-believer, but the chances that your soul would be exorcised and sent to Hell if you stepped into a church are still pretty slim, last time I checked._

And of course: _I check twice a day, just in case._

Mild and friendly, and yet he would mean all of it. John felt almost relieved the circumstances were far from normal. “Just let me know if you find something” he grunted, and hung up. _How_ they managed to be friends he would never understand.

He warded the entrances to the building on his way back.

 

He dumped a small arsenal on one of the beds, thinking of a new plan. “Check them and clean them” he ordered distractedly; it needed to be done anyway, and sitting around was never good for Dean. Research. John reached to his pocket, feeling for the car keys. At this hour, the libraries would be closed, but they could always break in.

 Dean shifted nervously. “Okay, but Dad…”

Newspapers and documents, that’s what they needed. Jim will handle the more obscure volumes, but maybe there are town legends written down somewhere?  “This isn’t time to be lazy, Dean. Weapons need to be kept in function.” He calculated how much work they could do before they both exhaust themselves into easy prey.

 “Yeah, I know… but Dad…”

John pinned his son with a stare, ready to tell him to just suck it up and do the job. Dean took a deep breath.

And then let out in a rush: “Dad, Sammy just called me.”

*

When you fight for the safety of your child, the stakes of the game are worth infinity, a psychic once told him – with all the wise metaphorical eloquence he loved Missouri for not using. Funny how that infinity can still be doubled, when you have two sons in danger instead of one.

John dragged a hand down his face. It was late; the night took them by surprise.

He looked at his son. Dean had grimaced at being sent to bed, obviously muttering something about five-year-olds in his head. He was out like a light the moment he touched the sheets. 

John wished he could sleep so innocently. All the worries of the day drained out of the boy’s face; he muttered indignantly at the moonlight that briefly fell to his face. John smiled slightly at that - Dean had always hated to have light in his eyes when he slept. It didn’t change since he was a baby.

John made sure to keep the desk lamp safely turned away from the beds. He opened his journal.

He tapped the pen on the table top for a moment. “Sammy called us today,” he started. “The day was full of surprises.”

He closed his eyes, thinking. Every now and then writing that journal of his turned into a private therapy session, but he couldn’t really afford that. Certainly not now.

 _Dad, Sammy just called me._ John gritted his teeth, unsettled even at the memory. Sammy doesn’t just _call._ He itched to get to his feet again:

“What did he say?” John had asked, pacing. He added immediately, “I thought you two don’t talk?”

“We don’t” Dean said decisively, and John’s panic doubled. “He was… strange. He asked if everything is fine.”

And wasn’t that spot on.

John exhaled quietly, feeling like he had been holding his breath. Dean twitched again in his sleep. The symbols on the walls gleamed in the moonlight, room enfolded by a silence heavier than usual. _He asked if everything is fine._ Sammy, boy, where did you learn that?

“Did he sound like he was in trouble?”

Dean chew on his lip. “No,” he decided after a while. “I think he was worried about us.”

After the fight about college Sam had cut all of his ties. He didn’t want anything to do with _this,_ he told them, and by ‘this’ he meant his family. He had been keeping silent for almost two years now.

But now he called. “What do you think, Dad?”

Dean waited for answers with calm certainty that his dad would have them. John sighed. “What did you say to him?” Whatever was happening in this town was bigger than they thought even now, was what he thought. And it wasn’t as if they had been thinking it was a small case anymore.

Dean’s voice drifted to him:  “I told him we were fine, started asking him what the hell, you know, what was going on. He hung up pretty soon after that.”

“Not picking up?” John asked wryly.

“No.”

John swiped his fingers over the pages in front of him, mulling over the memory. Sam’s instincts were uncanny. Intuitive like a cat, almost to the inhuman levels. But John knew the boy enough to be sure that if he knew something – anything – he would pass it on to them. Sam might not like his background but he didn’t want them dead either, and he knew better than to dismiss the danger.

Yet the timing was curious at least, and John didn’t believe in coincidences.

Somehow, this was connected with everything else around them, the big picture he couldn’t yet see. Suddenly he remembered another thing that psychic had told him: those who presume to know everything die the most stupid deaths. Lyssandra, he remembered. That was her name. He wondered what she would tell him now. Something about double stakes and kids. 

Or maybe something about getting to the goddamn work already. Missouri would be saying that for about an hour now.

He looked at the blank page in front of him. Slowly, he wrote: snow, flowers, weather, lightings. Dreams.

He frowned, then circled “weather” and “dreams”. The two centers of one phenomenon.

Did none of that appear in the local news?

It was in times like this he realized how much he had changed over the years, really. He wasn’t  John Winchester anymore, a man, a father… but _him_ – the Hunter. Because it bothered him, to the very core of his being, that none of _them_ had noticed this before.

“Weather.”

No matter what Jim said, his job, the important part of his job, was noticing things. And he was damn good at it.

He knew for a fact Jim checked for elements, rapid changes especially, collecting the data and analyzing it every week. Could it be hidden, somehow? Witchcraft or something? John was never good at those kind of hunts.

“Dreams.” Clairvoyance? He scribbled that above the word.

But then, there was the other possibility. Jim’s job was noticing things. Killing things, however, wasn’t, and this wouldn’t be the first time the preacher kept things under a rug until they blew in his face.

“Dreams.” Could it be a creature playing at mass hallucination?

He generally came clean when they did, though: taking one side or the other, but telling the truth. Jim wasn’t a type for lying just to make himself look better.

“Dreams.”

Really, far as John knew – and it wasn’t like he met the damn priest yesterday – Jim wasn’t a type for lying at all.

And now Sam.

He came here to give them a breather, dammit. Dean had been running on fumes for some time already, pushing himself well over his limit. It was a habit John never quite managed to erase from the boy – when in stress, run yourself to the ground. And since Sam had left, they were always ‘in stress’. After he witnessed his son almost get torn to pieces on their last hunt, John started to look for something easy for them to do.

He snorted – if he believed in the Three Fates, at least one of them would be laughing at him right now.

Weather. Dreams. Sam.

Sam.

Sammy and Dean.

Double stakes indeed, Lyssandra.

He kept watch over Dean, and thought about what sigils he could add to their protection.

 

***************************************************************

 

“There’s a story of a curse,” Dean said. They sat in the local library, surrounded by whatever could come in handy. Hiding from the curiosity of middle-aged “Sue, darling” was doomed to failure, so they didn’t even try. She seemed subdued, though.

(It was easy to achieve, pretty much routine now: “Can I help you, sir? The police station is three houses down the street.” John nodded seriously. “We’d like to see the town records, please.”

The librarian frowned. “The town records? Sir, if you mean police documentation…”

“No. I mean town records.”

“He thinks something like this happened here before,” Dean interjected. Sue paled.

Then Dad snaps at him, and Dean makes a sheepish face while Dad asks the librarian to keep it to herself, for the good of the investigation. They leave the poor woman – or man, sometimes – in shock, and Dean theatrically mutters “Sorry, boss” as they shuffle along with boxes upon boxes of unneeded ballast. It’s smokescreen, Dad explained once.)

John looked up with interest.

“A curse?”

“Yeah, listen to this: ‘Many years ago, a strange but beautiful woman came to Black Port. She moved into an old mill by the river, and quickly gained many friends. They called her Anne, because she never told them her name.’

‘Years passed, and Anne stayed young and beautiful. People started to wonder. Witch! someone shouted after her at the market. Someone spat behind her back on the tract. Anne never reacted. Until one day, a group of young man stormed her home and dragged her out, shouting and yelling.’

‘Then, a lightning came from a clear sky. “Stupid people! I am no witch. My name is Spring, daughter of Summer and Winter. Did you not like it, when you had rich harvest for twenty years? I loved your town, and I hid my name from you so I could stay here. Now I will leave.”’

‘Spring looked at the men with anger. “But I won’t be leaving you alone. I have four brothers, and they have been looking for a place to play with for a very long time.” At Spring’s words, sky opened, and her brothers came down with glee.’” Dean raised an eyebrow. “She probably had a shit-ton of glee, too,” he muttered, but couldn’t help but think those _young men_ deserved it. Assholes. He cleared his throat.

“‘Since then, the four Winds can do whatever they want, bringing sudden storms from clear sky and changing weather as they pleased, without asking Summer and Winter for permission.’”

Dean tapped into the page. “Could be a creature.”

“It could be,” John agreed thoughtfully. The overall story sounded nonsensical, but still… he frowned. “Which year is that book from?”

Dean looked at him quizzically. “Ugh…” he glanced at the cover. “1980. Why?” his eyes widened. “…oh.”

John nodded. That would be thirty six years.

You don’t come to a library looking for answers. That was one of the first things John had learned about research, with Tom Wilson laughing his ass off at the rookie thumbing through a fifty year old book looking for a legend about a creature that had been haunting the place for _two weeks._

You come to a library for hints. That’s all you can hope to get. The rest you have to figure out on your own, with knowledge that you already have and books better than the ones a thousand-citizen town has in stock.

Something was clearly not right, because those last lines sure sounded like an attempt at an answer to him.

It was probably just a coincidence. He took the book from Dean, comparing it with the one he had before. The legends were different, which probably meant the ones from 2003 were new – which would mean there was something to fuel them – but some of the motives repeated themselves. Strange. He looked through another book – year 1968. Different legends, same motives. He took another one, year 1955.

Year 1947.

He turned around, and reached for the nearest box.

*

John stared unblinkingly at the disarray of papers in front of him. Pandora probably felt something like this, too. “Sue, do you have a photocopier here?”

“Five cents per page.”

John nodded, reaching for his wallet. He thumbed through the cash – fifty dollars. He wondered if that would be enough.

 

It wasn’t, but in the end, Sue just gave up on keeping count. She found them cardboard boxes from a store nearby, pushed them out of her library and turned the sign on the door to ‘closed’. Huh. They must have unnerved her.

*

Adding it all to their board was impossible, so they just tried to visualize it with notes, making a timeline on one wall, and gathering the incidents by types on the other. They didn’t even _take with them_ any of the legends – bedtime stories, all of them, Dad said, and he was right. They changed like a kaleidoscope, and not even the oldest one of them could ever be old enough.

Usually bed time stories was what they worked with, really, brainstorming over smoke and mirrors like it was Holy Scripture. Sam thought it was fun. (Not that he ever admitted it, the little bitch). Dean thought it was annoying. But this time – well, it wasn’t like they were lacking data. All they put up was the legitimate stuff, shortened version.

Looking at the final effect, Dean tried to remember if they ever had three walls of the room taken up by research. He came up short.

“So. It’s been going on for a while.”

“Yeah.”

With three boxes worth of photocopied paper still scattered around in stacks and heaps, they had a full view on how big the case really was.

“Holy Jesus,” muttered John. It was an exclamation his mother used to utter; it hadn’t left his lips in twenty years.

He didn’t notice.

Black Port had a history of being a strange place as long as the town record – who knew, maybe longer. Just like in those books: snow out of nowhere, dreams, people predicting future, plants folding and unfolding like a witch got a grip on them, animals acting out. Different stories, same motives.

Over, and over, and over again.

What changed was the scale: in 1803, it was one tree losing its leaves in summer, and then nothing for thirty years. It rose steadily over the years. Pets acted strange from time to time. Temperatures rose or dropped without warning some days.  Visionaries popped up every now and then. Up and up and up, gently. Quietly. It was probably why no one was panicking now.

It could have been that the records got bigger – literacy grew, there were more and more newspapers, more documents, things that would be omitted before got written down this time. Somehow, he didn’t think so.

In fact, he was surprised they didn’t _stop_ recording it by now – such a normal thing, water freezing in summer. Nothing worth writing about, happens all the time.

He exhaled slowly.

For some reason, it reminded him of Jeremy Grane – the sick fuck enjoyed boiling frogs alive, slowly heating the water without them noticing. He never did figure out if it was possession that fried his brain, hunting in general, or just his personality, but that was the first time he opted out on a job just to get his kids away from another hunter.

When he heard Grane died bloody a few years later, circumstances unknown, he didn’t even feel guilty for being relieved. That was a first, too.

He looked at the notes with narrow eyes. They didn’t count the incidents as they put them up, it was impossible, but it was important, too. He tried to estimate which ones happened most.

“Dad? Look at that.” John turned around, facing the other wall. Dean was looking at the board quizzically.

He motioned to groups of reports as he talked. “January, June, September, March, July…” he listed slowly. “In the eighties, see? There’s always three or four months of nothing in between.”

John followed the data. The boy was on the right track. “Four in the first half of the decade,” he corrected his son. “Three in the second.” His lips thinned. “Two in the early nineties. The pattern holds.” The phenomenon was intensifying.

Dean looked at the latest data. “Huh.”

*

If you knew what to look for, you could see it in recent years, too: weirdness was fluctuating; rampaging around for about a month, then going dormant for a few days, then raising again. It was strange; Dean was hardly an expert but generally omens just _were,_ happened around a black dog or something without warning.

Dad was scratching out hypothesis out loud. Dean listened, making mental notes for himself about the supernatural shit: it wasn’t a spell – too long-lasting. No spell can outlive the witch by decades. And pointless, too.

Not a trickster – pointless would be in their taste, apparently, but again, too long. Tricksters bore easy. (And seriously, there are some fuckers out there that do this sort of thing for _fun?_ Dean shook his head. He went back to paying attention).

Not a curse, Dad was saying, because that one could last through infinity, but it’s set; never changing. _Nothing like the shit-storm of bizarre that we have here,_ Dean’s mind supplied. 

Not a pagan god, pagan gods need a stream of offerings. Too large for ghost, they’re just not powerful enough. Not a wild hunt, either.

Not a haunting, not a genie ( _there are genies?_ ), not a thought-form, not a psychic panic. Dad cut idea after an idea open, showed what was inside, then dragged the bit that didn’t work out for everyone to see. He called Pastor Jim, then someone else. It didn’t seem like he was hearing anything useful.  

Dean bit his lip, looking at the board. All that paper may as well be blank, for all the good it did them. 

They couldn’t find any creature that fit, any reason behind it, or any way to stop it. Like landing on another planet, Dean thought. You walk out of your spaceship, look around and you see stuff… and fat load of good it does, because you don’t even know if its plants or animals staring back at you.

*

“The pattern broke” John said suddenly, coming to the board. “We should be at high point now, but we didn’t see even one strange thing since coming here. That’s four days now.”

“You’re sure?”

Mechanically, John  took out his cell. “Lillian. When was the last time you had one of the nightmares you described?”

“With the feeling? Ugh, four days ago.”

It didn’t take long to determine that for the last four days no one in town had a ‘removed from everything’ dream. There were only one thousand and four citizens in the town, and Lillian knew _everyone._ Within ten minutes, they were reasonably sure, and in an hour she confirmed it: no one.

And it wasn’t just dreams. There were no strange weather-things, no animals or pets acting weird, no – no _nothing._ Whatever was happening, right now it _wasn’t._

“So that’s… good?” Dean tried. “It went away?”

But judging by Dad’s face, no, it wasn’t good. “If it went away, it went away quickly,” he said. “It went away running.”

Dean shifted uneasily. “Why?”                

“Because something bigger is coming.”

 

For a minute, there was nothing but silence in the room. _This is when the axe-murderer strikes_ , Dean thought idly.

And everyone on the screen dies screaming.

 

Dean licked his lips. “What do we do?”

John sighed. “We do our job” he decided. “There’s a girl that needs our help; we came here for her, we don’t leave that unfinished.”

Dean nodded, and prepared the gear – finally something he knew how to do. Shovel, ground, repeat; he’d been doing this since he was twelve. It even looked like a warm night was coming; considering the fact that Celeste probably wasn’t about to try to kill them, it was a vacation.

But of course, it wouldn’t be that simple.

“The _ghost_ is gone?” He checked the readings again. “How can a ghost run away?”

The EMF was showing complete, dead zero, not even the background hum. He shook the device with an irritated frown. “Maybe it’s just broken” he muttered. Then he amended, “Maybe they’re all broken.”

Dad looked grim.

*

They torched the bones anyway – you don’t leave that unfinished. Dean watched the girl burn with a gnawing feeling in his gut; she had been nineteen. Sammy’s age.

Her hair was startlingly light in the fire. It reminded him of a halo on a painting he saw at a church once, stealing a rosary. It reminded him of Lillian.

 

He wanted to think that they were pushing her on to something better, but somehow, he couldn’t believe it.

The fire died out. In utter silence, he started putting the dirt back into place.

Shovel hitting ground. Soil rhythmically hitting soil.

Somewhere behind him, he thought, Dad did the same; soil hitting soil.

Six feet is not that much, it turns out. He looked at the grave: Celeste Hope McAllen, loving daughter and sister. All they did was kill what was left of an innocent, teenage girl, who didn’t even earn their anger by hurting anyone. Loving daughter and sister. He looked at his dad.

A shrill sound cut through the air.

Dean jumped – in the middle of the cemetery, a cell phone rang. He reached to his pocket hastily.

“Uh…”

“Dean!! Are you okay?!” Dean blinked. Was it…?

“Sammy?” he asked stupidly. Yeah, it was Sammy alright. It just didn’t make _sense._

“Dean, talk to me. Are you hurt? Where are you, do you need me to call 991? Is Dad there? Is he okay? Dean!”

And finally, Dean managed to get his marbles together. “Sammy, calm down. We’re fine, Dad’s fine. Dad’s right here.”

John definitely was _right there._ It took all of his goddamn will not to demand the phone for himself – but he had just enough sense to know just how fucking well would that go with his youngest.

John stood with forced calm, and listened.

“I’m _fine,_ Sammy,” Dean was saying. He glanced at his dad, looking lost – but his voice conveyed nothing but certainty. (That’s my boy, John thought). “Calm down.”

 

Without monsters, there’s nothing to drown out even smallest sounds in the middle of the night, John thought cynically. Sam’s harsh, panicked breathing could be heard over the phone. “Okay. Okay.”

Dean pressed the phone closer against his ear in an unconscious protective gesture.

Sam was scared, that much was clear; and no matter how hard he was trying to hide it, whenever Sam was scared, Dean got scared too.

Dean licked his lips. “Do you want to talk with Dad?”

Instant answer. “ _No._ ”

For a moment, nobody spoke. Then, tentatively, “He’s okay?”

“Yeah, Sammy. He’s good.”

Dean shot him a guilty look – but it was no surprise that Sam didn’t want to talk with him. John didn’t spare much thought for that. Instead, he watched with tiny specks of pride as Dean committed all of his attention to his little brother again.

“Yeah, Sam,” Dean said for the third time. Sam was still sounding spooked, almost dazed with some kind of a shock – but quickly remembering that _he doesn’t actually talk_ with his brother. He seemed both scared and frustrated at himself for being so, resulting in frantic jabs to ‘just be fucking careful, okay?’. “Will do, Sam,” Dean told him firmly, and didn’t say that he knows Sam only picks up at hunter gutter talk when he’s at the end of his rope.

They exchanged a few more sentences, increasingly short. It was a lot like talking with Sam just after he went away – less angry, more scared, but just as awkward. “Yeah, Sam. Okay. Bye.”

He hung up, and turned to face his dad. John looked at him expectantly, muscles ridden with tension.

“Sam?” John asked unnecessarily. Sam’s voice carried loud and clear in the still of the cemetery.

“Yeah” Dean muttered.  He shrugged awkwardly. “He was…”

“Worried” John cut in. He heard.

He gestured at Dean to pick up his gear; they made their way back in tense silence.

*

A girl was smiling, laughing, in white fiery dress. _I wanted it to be a lie_ , she said. _You should have done something._

She looked back, smiled. He followed her by the song: _there’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold…_

_And she’s walking a stairway to heaven._

He flinched awake.

He propped himself on a shoulder, breathing heavily, methodically roaming his eyes for a threat. Dad was still sleeping in his chair. Nothing was there. Dean closed his eyes briefly; he could still see that gravestone behind his eyelids. Celeste Lillian McAllen, loving daughter and sister…

Between one breath and the other, he grabbed his boots and went out.

*

John opened his eyes to an empty room.

Salt lines were untouched. Sigils unbroken, nothing out of place. But his son wasn’t there. God _-dammit_ , just one more night…

The door opened as he was marching to it. “Sorry, couldn’t sleep. Brought you coffee.”

John took the cup pushed into his hand mechanically. “Dean, you don’t leave the retreat without notice on a job,” he snapped.

Dean avoided his eyes. “I know. Sorry.”

He took a bundle of papers, looking through them. “So, uh, I’ve been thinking. Maybe we contact some other hunters? Like, you know, backup?”

He took a sip of his coffee nervously. It tasted like tar. “Should have brought us food,” he muttered distractedly. “We could use a hand. I mean, this thing is big.” Dean nodded to himself. “Doesn’t look like just a creature, right, at least not one…”

John slowly put his coffee on the tabletop. He leaned over the back of a chair, feeling tired. “Dean, there’s a possible dybbuk hunt in Nevada. You’ll go check it out.”

Dean stopped fiddling with the paper. He looked at his dad.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Dean shook his head, uncomprehending. “Dad, I can’t go. You need me here.”        

John didn’t answer. He could feel the eyes of his son at himself as he slowly came to realization. “You’re sending me away.”

“You’ll leave the town and go to Nevada. Caleb has dispositions for you. On your way, you will contact Jim and tell him everything you know about this town. He’ll take it from there.”

“Dad…”

“That’s an order, Dean.”                                                                                                                                                   

For a moment, there was only dead silence in the room. “…yes, sir.”

“You take the Impala.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you take care of yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

With obvious reluctance, Dean went to pack his things. It was almost painful to watch; Dean hated to be on his own, hated to be away from his family. John hated forcing him to. But Dean was only a boy, and this fight – it didn’t look good. They might have to evacuate the town; John went over several ideas, dismissing them all. He had good practice closing off a building or a street, but to empty a city? He sure as hell hoped Jim would have some knowledge to add.

Or at least people with knowledge. He looked at his boy, so strikingly alone without his dad. There were some obvious disadvantages to avoiding other hunters–

The ground shook.

Dean looked up from his duffel bag with wide eyes.

“That… was a pyrrhic victory” someone slurred. For a second, there was a heavy hand on Dean’s shoulder, and then, a body slumped and slid down to the ground. Dean was at his side first. Within an instant, he was kneeling, reaching for the figure.

“Sammy,” he breathed.

 

 

 

 


	2. ***

 

Ready to die in glory and bloody guts? You better be, because I’m not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...a bit short? I know, sorry.


	3. Edge of the knife

 

 

CHAPTER TWO: Edge of the knife

 

 “Dean, first aid kit, now!”

*

For half a second, Dean just stared. It hadn’t occurred to him that Sam’s bad feeling might not be for Dean at all—that something could happen to _Sam_. Sam was supposed to be safe, away at college, just another normal kid. Not slumped over in some dingy motel room.

Half a second later, Sam whimpered, and the world came to life. Dean got pushed aside by a worried father. (Dad threw a short order at him – Dean blinked. Med kit, right, that would be a good idea. He scrambled to his feet).

“Sam. Look at me, Sam, look up. Sam!” John was kneeling next to his youngest, turning his face–- there were red, sticky tear-tracks on Sam’s cheeks. (Mid-step, Dean’s world tilted suddenly. He almost fell to the floor again). John gritted his teeth.

“Help me cut off his shirt.”

 

(Sam’s clothes were shredded, barely there at all; soaking red, they left little to imagination. And yet, taking them away left him vulnerable and exposed and broken all over again).

 

His eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to recognize them. Dean wasn’t even sure if he could see at all, if maybe he’d gone blind. He looked at his baby brother’s face – what caused this kind of damage?

There was so much blood.

(Lying on the floor. Bleeding. Dean’s breath hitched; Sammy’s torn clothes were covered in red, and it was spreading under him already. Half a second later, Sam whimpered, and new kind of hell began).

“Dad, we can’t do this, he needs hospital…”

“No time.”

*

It took over three hours for Bill Harvelle to die. If you slow down the bleeding, you can buy some time, you can save the life. John didn’t know what to do then, wouldn’t know how to hold a gun if it wasn’t for the war. All he could do was fumble at the raw flesh, breathe in the blood, heavier and heavier in the air… hold on to his hand, feel it trembling…

He wasn’t that kid anymore. Slow down the bleeding. Close the wounds, buy the time.

Save the life.

Hold on, Sammy, just keep fighting. Keep breathing, son, we’ve got you…

*

Sam was covered in cuts and bruises. Dean tried to take the stock; three large gushes in his abdomen, a stab wound through his side, the bleeding eyes. There were deep cuts on his chest (just a hair’s away from the heart, way too close). The arm was probably dislocated, bones must have been broken, ribs, legs…

Dean was no stranger to field medical aid, helping yourself to a needle and a thread. But this was something else altogether. This was a surgery.

(They spread the motel towels under him, soaking up the blood, separating him from the floor. On the towels, Dean put his own clothes, hopefully that will be a tiny bit more sterile – who knew who had used those towels before them, and for what. Or at least, it’ll be a little softer. Sammy needed all the comfort he could get right now).

They worked, going through layers and layers of Sammy’s body, because it wasn’t enough to stitch up the skin this time – this time, there were vital organs hurt. At least half of the cuts have reached _something_ , and if Dean just stopped for one second, and thought about how badly he _didn’t know what he was doing,_ he wouldn’t be able to start again.

He kept his eyes firmly open, staring into the red. What he wouldn’t give for one of those heart thingies they always have on the TV – it would be so fucking helpful for something to just blip reassuringly.

Needle, flesh, needle.

Again.

Needle, flesh, needle.

Again.

The crudely applied bandages were seeping through already. Dean abandoned what he was doing, leaving his dad to finish Sam’s – liver, something – and hurriedly added more. There was no use saving Sam’s liver if he bled out in the meantime.

Arteries, veins, cuts.

Close.

Arteries, veins, cuts.

Again…

(Don’t stop. Don’t think. One slip and you’re done, he told himself). On the other side of the prone body, John was working with the same fervent hurry.

Sam watched them both with calm, uncomprehending eyes.

 

 

 

 


	4. Hours

CHAPTER TWO

Hours

 

 

Every now and then morals get challenged in hunting, and if it wasn’t for his Dad, Dean would be well on to the dark side already. He knew that, and most of the time, he felt grateful to be kept in check – but not right now. To hell with morals.

He strode through the streets, graveyard dirt coming off his boots in chunks, clammy air clinging to his skin. It was a perfectly September weather, and Dean wanted to spit under its feet for that.

He knew it was stupid – deliberately slipping through the safety net. Somehow, he just couldn’t bring himself to care.

Just after pounding on the door he realized what an ungodly hour it was… but Lillian McAllen was already opening, wide awake. Right. Dean remembered all of his nightmares about Sammy getting hurt–- she wouldn’t be a fan of sleeping.

Not that it helped at the moment. The young, pale woman looked at him expectantly. “Yes?”

He shuffled his feet; he didn’t quite plan for this part. “Ugh, sorry, I’m not sure you remember…”

“Dean, was it?”

“Yeah.” _God, they looked too alike._ “Sorry” he repeated. “Can I come in?”

Her hand tightened on the door handle, knuckles whitening. Dean took a second to tell himself off again on his timing, assaulting a traumatized victim in the middle of a night, what was he thinking? But after a moment, she released it, opening the door wider with a slight nod. Dean decided to take it as a sign of trust – it was much better than the sudden idea that she might just not care what would happen.

They stood in front of each other; it looked like Lillian was waiting for something, with apathy he didn’t see in her before. Then she blinked, frowned at him – or maybe herself? – and marched determinedly into the house.

He followed – what else was there to do? Wondering what the hell he was doing here, because surely, not throwing away everything he believed in for twenty years. He noticed the scattered ‘Black Port News’ issues, they both worked at the local newspaper, he remembered that. He couldn’t quite stop looking at the pictures, though: two little girls, playing it the garden. Two teenagers, laughing at the camera. Two young almost-women… He couldn’t quite tell which one was which.

Other people came and went; parents, grandparents, friends. It was always the two of them, us against the world, us and no one else, us against the monsters. It was always the three of them. The world darkened around the edges for a millisecond.

The room smelled of blood.

 “...in your dream. Did you see? The… the killer?” he stumbled on the last word. It just… it didn’t seem enough.

Lillian just looked at him. “If I knew who did it, they would be dead already” she told him flatly.

She didn’t know.

Dean wondered if being disappointed at a lack of murder in the near future was very unhealthy. (Psychopathic, maybe? He had a vague idea that the possibility should scare him, but somehow, it just didn’t). Someone hurt an innocent kid, a teenage girl, a teenage boy… he wanted to know.

She was supposed to be safe, away at college, just another normal kid. Not slumped in a… the room smelled of blood.

 “There were four of them” she said quietly. “They… I don’t know them. There are sketches from my descriptions at the police station.”

Dean felt lightheaded. He wasn’t sure why… there was blood, somewhere.

“You went to a police station? What did you tell them?” his fingers were moving, doing something, something important.

 “What do you think? The truth.” It was wet, between his fingers, he thought. Wet and warm and…

And, and wet…

“The truth” he repeated. His voice was startlingly _there,_ and yet, it felt like it was coming from far away, too. He frowned, tried to focus. Wet… warm… “You said you saw them two days before it happened. Really?” he heard.

She shrugged. “Life’s weird. Not like Hal doesn’t know.”

For a moment, it’s gone dark, and there was only that heavy smell in the air. It reminded him of something, it was important, _think._

Help her.

A girl smiled at him from pictures.

Help them.

He couldn’t quite tell which one…

Help who?

“There was four of them” she repeated. “I never saw them before… they’ve never come around before.” A figure was lying on the floor… bleeding… “They were drunk. They wanted… they were looking to have _fun._ It was all part of the party.” …three large gushes in the abdomen, a stab wound through the side… “It was the blonde that started it, with the beard. It was his idea.” Red, soaking clothes, get the towels…  “He grabbed her, and grinned at the others, gagging her with his hand. He dragged her from behind.” Bones must have been broken, ribs, legs… “The red-head helped him. He was the only one that looked it, that looked like he was a cutthroat.” The arm was dislocated…  “The other two, the one with the crew-cut, and the one with the pony-tail – they already had knifes in their hands.”

The chanting, mesmerizing voice, soaking red, heavy, and suddenly she looked at him. “They were laughing” she said. “The whole time, they were laughing…”

“Dean.” A hand gripped his shoulder. “Dean!”

Dean blinked several times, wondering at the black spots dancing around. “‘m fine,” he mumbled.

Sammy. It was Sammy. Help your little brother.

Help him.

He concentrated on his hands again. Dad was looking at him; they couldn’t afford to spare any attention on Dean now. “I’m fine” he repeated, much clearer this time. “Help me with this cut?”

Thankfully, Dad did. They worked in silence; concentration is the key.

One slip and you’re done.

Don’t stop.

Take care of your brother.

Don’t think.

(Huh. Dean’s hands almost weren’t shaking anymore, he noted absentmindedly; spacing out was _good for something_ ).

 

It was at least four hours since John was worried for only _one_ of his sons. This stunt was taking too long; Dean was getting sluggish, tired, coming down of the adrenaline but still strung up on nerves – God only knew what that was doing to the boy’s head. And with Sam still open, laying helplessly under their hands–-

“Dean, change his bandages” he ordered. Dean glanced at him, but John suspected he was too tired to figure out what his father was doing. It didn’t matter anyway; Dean listened to orders.

It wasn’t much of a break, but it would have to do for now.

It was early morning when Sam appeared, and now, they were approaching late afternoon of the next day. Dean was close to passing out from exhaustion, that much was obvious… but somehow, he kept conscious, kept working.

“Almost over” he promised his son. Dean nodded without much conviction, busy with the wounds.

Don’t stop.

You have too much to do.

Never stop.

Sam’s whole left side of the body was swollen almost beyond recognition. His leg was bleeding through again, skin broken all the way from hip to knee. It would need more stitches, and soon. There were some deep slashes over his right hip, too, and his shoulder blade needed a better dressing, something to keep the shattered bits of bone from doing even more damage.

They were running out of the bandages.

The scary thing was, they didn’t give Sam anything for pain – neither of them thought of it, too much happened too quickly – but Sam barely reacted at all. Dean didn’t want to know what that meant.

(Don’t think.)

Sam had grown tired over the hours – his head was turning after them sluggishly, his eyes half-lidded, closing every now and then without concern.

(Don’t think.)

Dean’s heart clenched; it could be blood loss, or shock, or something else that doctors had a fancy name for, and just meant they wouldn’t be able to keep Sam breathing after all.

(Don’t _think,_ goddammit.)

It was almost over, Dean told himself. Dad said so. They pushed Sam into a sitting position, exposing his back. It was badly bruised, like maybe he’d been slammed into some hard surface over and over, and there was a long, deep gush from his right shoulder to left hip, skin broken in half. Some smaller cuts, looking like claw marks. Some ashen dirt under the skin. Dean didn’t notice any of that.

 “Dad…” he choked out.

“I see it.”  

 

They needed to close the gush first. It wasn’t bleeding too badly, covered in red crusts instead – but John didn’t trust it to heal on its own. Dean helped him with shaking fingers, never quite looking away from his upper torso.

John understood that perfectly. He pushed the needle in, forcing himself to focus. The more distracted he was, the more time it would take, he told himself. He pulled the needle out.

He pushed it in again, and again. Blood seeped under his fingers; some of the crusts fell off. John pushed the needle. Pulled. Pushed. He had never tried skinning someone alive, but he heard it was the worst torture possible. Maybe he would try it now, if Sam had left his opponent alive.

He pushed the needle. Maybe he would go to a necromancer, if not.

Finally, the cut was secured. John glanced at the upper torso of his son, and nodded grimly.

He turned to his other boy. “Give me the tweezers.”

 

John saw something like this happen on the front once, a commanding officer saving a young soldier – but it was only one bullet, locked in the hip. The boy lived. He just never walked again.

Sam had his bullets somewhere around the upper part of his lungs, one near the heart. John clenched his teeth.

It will be different with his son. 

“Antiseptic” John commanded. Dean reached for the whiskey bottle – it was mixed with holy water, that would buy them some seconds, thank God for small mercies – and wordlessly handed it. He watched the alcohol be liberally poured on Sammy’s back and the tool, then watched his dad repeatedly push the tweezers into his little brother’s flesh.

Sammy winced, mumbling some half-hearted protest. His back muscles twitched under the treatment.

It wasn’t enough for this kind of pain, and suddenly Dean wondered if Sam was conscious at all, if maybe he was dying. He watched his dad take out the bullets, metal after metal hitting the floor. How many were there? This was too much.

This was way, way too much. “Dad, he needs a hospital” he forced out.

“He can’t be moved, Dean” muttered John, not breaking his focus. “We do this or he dies.” He pushed the tweezers in again.

“Start the stitches.”

Dean started the stitches. Suddenly he noticed that despite how clearly he’d been in a fight—one with both guns and blades, not to mention claws, if the cuts all over Sam were any indication – his baby brother had no weapons on him whatsoever.

A sitting duck. He gritted his teeth, taking care not to push the needle with any more force than necessary. He got distracted quickly; John swore under his breath.

Dean glanced at him. “What is it?”

“I can’t reach this one…”

Oh.

Oh, crap.

Dean pressed his lips together. “Give me the tweezers.”

John looked at his son appraisingly for a moment; he silently gave him the tool. It felt heavy in Dean’s hand. He took a deep breath. We do this or he dies, he told himself.

 

 

By the end, Dean was shaking like a leaf. He was as pale as Sammy, and covered in his blood. One arm wrapped securely around Sam’s shoulders, John took the tool gently out of Dean’s hand.

“Go clean yourself up” he told him.

Dean took a shuddering breath. “I’m fine” he protested.

“Go clean yourself up, Dean.” The second time, he gave in. Dean listens to orders; he took his escape to the bathroom. John listened to the sounds of the water running, and Dean trying to pull himself together. He closed the last wound, and added stitches to the cuts they hastily sew together with only a fraction of what they needed. Working in silence, he breathed, keeping the tremors in his hands in check. He wasn’t sure how long it was before Dean felt in control enough to come out again.

John was on the verge of losing control himself by that time. Behind the window, the sun was raising again.

***

Finally, John took his little boy in his arms, while Dean wiped the blood off him. Gently, they put him naked and unconscious to Dean’s bed. The sheets seemed to welcome him easily; Sam looked like he belonged there.

Dean sat on the other bed, surrounded by weapons.

He stared at his baby brother’s still form, the first words he heard from Sammy after over a year of silence circling on repeat. A pyrrhic victory. A victory that wasn’t worth it’s price.

Dean couldn’t agree more. “Why Sammy?” he asked helplessly.

No one had an answer for him.

 


	5. ***

 

Gabriel propped up his chin, forcing him to meet his eyes.

“Sam Winchester,” he said quietly, “I seek your assistance in my fight against evil, so I may erase it from this world, and the other.  Do you consent to granting me your flesh and bone, as my charge, companion, and weapon?”

Sam’s hands trembled. One went up to his chest, grasping blindly for something against his heart. Gabriel gripped it reassuringly.

He waited.

Looking at him with wide eyes, Sam swayed. A strong hand steadied him by the shoulder, with ease and patience, waiting.

“I do,” he whispered.

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Phyrric

 

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

Pyrrhic

 

It’s cold. I’m shivering; there is damp, dark forest around me, the trees reaching out for me greedily, their arms twisted… Today is the end, and I am shivering, from cold.

I walk. Alone, because that’s safer, safer for the others, and I don’t need to be safe.

I am, anyway. I walk safely: it’s warmer where I stand, there is not a branch in my way, shadows move out of my path. It’s subtle, but I notice –  he’s taking care of me, letting me in. I know, and it makes me sick, it makes me feel like I am going to do something terrible, like I don’t know what I’m gonna do.

What am I gonna do? I walk, safe and sound, through the darkest forest of the Earth.

_I’m here to say yes, Lucifer._

He’s waiting. He smiles at me, warmly, and I feel– I swallow.

He looks so proud.

It’s over almost before I can notice: _Yes._

_Yes…_

He smiles again, gently, like a close friend, a mentor, a lover… _oh God, please forgive me_ –- no. There is no forgiveness for the monsters. Lucifer would know.

 _Oh._ I breathe, and, and then I don’t. Lucifer takes a deep breath for me, trying to help me settle.

It’s cold, so cold in his soul…

*

Dean exchanged worried glances with his Dad. Sam was whimpering, his body barely moving. His face pressed into the pillow as if he was trying to turn it away, desperately not looking at something. Dean shifted helplessly. “Sam, Sammy, it’s okay” he murmured. “It’s okay, Sammy, you’re safe. I’ve got ya…”

He put a hand on his face, intending to brush the hair away, it always got in his eyes–

It was a mistake. Sam woke up with a gasp, limbs flailing, halfway out of bed before he even registered that he had been laying in it. Dean caught his forearms, preventing him from standing.

Sam’s breath hitched at the contact.

“Sam, hey, it’s okay. It was only a nightmare, you hear me?” His brother stared right at him, expression shell-shocked and unchanging, not a trace of recognition on his face.

Dean felt a sudden spike of fear. Sam’s fever wasn’t this high, was it? This shouldn’t be happening.

“Sammy, can you hear me?” he asked with forced calm. “Do you know what happened?”

At that, Dean could observe Sam’s face whitening.

Oh _._

Oh _,_ no _, Sam–_

Despite his ears buzzing, Dean could hear his Dad moving behind them.

“Sam? Sammy, it’s okay. You’re safe now.” Dad’s intervention was most welcome, since Dean was doing a shitty job on his own, but it didn’t have the desired effect. Sam flinched, his eyes widening just a little. He shrank into himself, trying to turn away from both of them.

Dean swallowed,  trying to clear his head. “How about you lie down, Sammy, huh?”

Sam closed his eyes briefly. Suddenly pliant, he let himself be pushed back onto the mattress. There, he curled into a tight ball, and stared ahead.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

“Sam.”

The room was silent. Dark, too – curtains drawn to protect Sam from summer heat.

“Dean.”

They looked at each other seriously, pale but trying to hide it. Checked guns for ammo.

“Let’s kill this son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, Dean.”

Dad went out to get supplies – food, mostly. Dean wasn’t hungry, and whenever Sam woke he wasn’t hungry either, but they were both accustomed to listening to their father, so if he told them to eat, they ate. Sam usually gave him a startled and bewildered look before complying, though. He probably kept expecting to wake up at Stanford, no unwanted family members in sight.

Sam turned in his sleep. (“Dean?”) One of his elbows jumped restlessly.

“Yeah?”

There were shadows around them everywhere, reaching out like flames, giggling like children. They were so small, Dean, Dean was so small, so fragile in the face of this battle. Like a brave toy soldier, Sam thinks he read such a story once, thrown into the fire. He gave his brother an attempt at a smile.

“You know what mom used to say to you when you went to sleep? Angels are watching over you?” Dean just looked at him.

Sam shrugged. “…It seems kinda funny now.”

Dean watched with tense shoulders for a while, but Sammy remained peaceful. He breathed out in relief.  Sam wasn’t about to have a nightmare after all.

Dad got back finally. He took about twice as long as anyone would need in this town, which meant he had been making phone calls he didn’t want his sons to listen to. Dean didn’t care. Dad was here now – it felt like there was a ton of weight taken from his shoulders.

“He’s been sleeping the whole time” he reported. “Barely moved at all, not a dream in sight.” John nodded tiredly, putting briefly a hand at his son’s shoulder. He motioned with the other hand to the bag of supplies. Dean got up to unpack them; John took his abandoned post.

Sam lay still. John sat beside him, grateful for an hour of a dreamless sleep for his son.

“Dean?”

It was time. The shadows were getting restless, excited, impatient–

“Yeah, Sam?” (I look him in the eye, serious, determined–) his heart hammered.

“It’s gonna be okay.” (It’s time. I know.) The shadows on the walls were screaming in joy now, shouting at him to rush it. (I used up all the spare moments, I used it all up, and now–) He took a deep breath. “It’s gonna be okay” he repeated. (I can’t wait any longer. I–)

Dean nodded slowly. “’Course it is. We—”  I catch him as he falls.

“It’s okay. You don’t need to be there, alright?” I whispered to his ear.

I ran a hand through his hair. Touched his cheek. (But that’s okay. This goodbye Dean wouldn’t remember, this is all for me…)

I hugged him tightly. “It’s okay. Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay. Everything’s going to be okay, Dean…”

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

“Sam, Sammy, it’s okay now…” Sam cried out. (It’s cold). _Damn it._ “It’s us, Sam, c’mon, it’s us, you’re okay…” Sam was whimpering, trashing, tearing into his bedding. “Sam, listen to me, you’re safe!” John barked.

Screaming. Fighting.

“Sam, Sam, it’s Dean. Can you hear me? You’re safe now, Sammy. It’s over. Me and Dad are here.” Alone is safer. Sam threw out his arm, blindly. “No!” he shouted suddenly. “Get away from them!”

Oh.

Dean froze up, stunned. Sam never talked in his sleep. For all the screaming and mumbling he never made an intelligible statement, and he wasn’t supposed to, was he? This was, this was close to hallucinating…

“Dean!”

Dean flinched, startled. “Yes, sir” he mumbled, ashamed of his slip. Sam thrashed. It’s cold. _I’m here to say yes, Lucifer._ He looks so proud. It’s cold, so cold in his soul. _Oh God, please forgive me—_

Sam started to tremble. _It’s okay Sam, you’re safe here, you’re fine, it’s…_ it’s now.  No forgiveness for the monsters. Over before I can notice _._ Close friend, a mentor, a lover…

We break out together, I can feel the edges, cold. _I’ll take care of you, my little king._

Sam exhaled. There was a sound and smell of an Angel around him. And with that sound, smell, _presence_ … he felt safe. ( _All gone now_ ). This burning power was his now, too. Sam took a ragged breath, and turned in his sleep.

Then, Gabriel came. _(I’m here to say yes.)_

And here is the Battle, the Battle of all ages, the Beginning and the End. And there were dark, dark wings cutting, feathers made of steel and stone, and the rivers turned into blood, and the blood flew, flew, on the inside… inside of his skin…

_Sam, Sammy, it’s okay now…_

He cried out, his abdomen suddenly wet. (Sometimes on the outside, too). “Damn it.”

He couldn’t see the trees anymore, every step was a color, and he could hear angels, hear angels… Castiel was dancing around him, sounds, music,  and it flew, it flew so freely, he could feel–

 _It’s us, Sam, c’mon, it’s us, you’re okay…_ “Sam, Sammy, it’s Dean. Can you hear me? Me and Dad are here.” And then, new wave of terror washes over me.

“No! Get away from them!” Alone is safe. I remember that. Dean shouldn’t… Dad shouldn’t…

“Dean!”

No. No. _Please…_

Lucifer takes a deep breath for me, trying to help me settle. _Dean._ I hug him tightly. _Don’t worry, Dean, it’s gonna be okay_. This goodbye Dean wouldn’t remember, this is all for me…

And then there was nothing. For a moment, there was nothing at all.

_Sammy._

_I’m here._ No. _I’m here._ No!  

Monster. This is your destiny. Remember. How can you run from what’s inside you? _Remember_ …  You let me in. It’s okay. I’ll take care of you. You’re safe now.

No. No…

_Shh, Sammy, calm down. I’m here…_

I woke up.

I woke up, I think. There, a blurry image of Dean, and Dad next to him. Lucifer and Gabriel and Cas are dead and I’m…somewhere. I remember now.

I feel… painful. Exhausted. All the same, I shift towards Dean (I can’t believe it’s really Dean, is it really Dean?), but then the pain– it’s too much. I go back under.

Wings. There are wings.

For the very first time, I can see Cas, real Cas, _Castiel_.

Angel of the Lord.

Something ruptures inside me, and I remember: here, now, _them._  One roars.

Rips and cuts and slashes. They are angry, so angry, betrayed. One of them… but the other is mournful, grieving between the blows, remorse, sorrow, because we are all going to die.

Sam doesn’t mind much.

Cas cuts from the outside. Lucifer attacks. Gabriel can’t protect them much, Cas is hurt, and then there’s something, something… and Gabriel bleeds, but Lucifer bleeds too.

Sam takes a breath, and he can feel his chest raising.

He tries to blink the blood away, but it’s no use. (He doesn’t need eyes to see now anyway, one of them tells him).

They clash again.

_I’m here to say yes, Lucifer. Sam…! Sam, you’re right here. My dear, little king. You’re with me, Sammy, can you hear me? It has been an honor, Sam Winchester. Sam, Sammy, listen to me… Sam._ _Look at me, Sam, look up_ _… My golden boy…  Who doesn’t love some fratricide before breakfast?  It’s okay Sam, you’re safe here, you’re fine, you’re safe…_

_We’ll fix you up. It’s my job to look after my pain in the ass little brother, right?_

Lucifer takes a breath for us. Gabriel’s eyes glaze over. They kneel on the ground; Cas is laying with his eyes open, golden glow swirling with effort: unable to stand, barely able to move, but still watching them. So helpless at their feet. My little, tiny brother, they think. They take the sword out of his hand, gently. _Go to sleep, honey, Angels are watching over you…_

Eyes open, I breathe raggedly, staring at the ceiling. I’m alive again.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

“You know, Sammy, no one would yell at you if you just got better. Or, stopped sleeping so much. It’s kinda freaking me out, having you passed out all the time. It’s like you’re unconscious and we should really take you to a hospital before you die.” He shifted unconsciously. “Do you think we should?”

Sam didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t.

Dean looked helplessly at the still form. It wasn’t like Sam didn’t wake, he did, it was just… Dean shook his head. “Man, it’s been rough without you, you know? Dad was strung up for weeks after you left. I was… Later, too, he was like a badly defused bomb.”

Thank God Dad wasn’t hearing this. He had gone out for food and phone calls again (Dean wasn’t dumb, if it was only food Dad  wanted he would just send Dean for it. He wondered if Dad even realized how obvious he sometimes was) – so Dean and Sam had the hearing space for themselves for now.

“Anyway, when you wake up, I’m taking you for the biggest burger I can find. You’re skinny. They don’t feed people in that college place?” he leaned forward in conspiracy. “And you know what? I saw _such_ a girl when I was out for food the other day, like you wouldn’t believe. I bet she’d like you. She had a book with her, can you believe your luck?”

On the bed, Sam stirred minutely.

 _Remember the plan._ It’s now. He could feel it before it happened, the pain. The light. Soul on fire, but the fire burned cold… cold, and bright, and- _pain._ It coursed through his body, possessively, swallowing him, drowning every memory and sensation until there was nothing but _him_ left…

But the worst was – he felt happy.

He was whole, like he never had been, all the answers suddenly in his grasp. And this one thing he had been so restlessly lacking all his life – here it was.

_(All gone now)._

_Remember the plan, just– remember…_

_You were running towards me,_ he said. It was true, and he was ashamed, and he didn’t understand why. Was something wrong? Powerful, golden wings closed around him protectively. It was getting harder and harder to remember…

Lucifer chuckled at him, the sound vibrating through his soul: _Don’t you worry so much. You’re the king of creation, my little child. I will give you this world._

_Sam. I will give you everything._

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> In all honesty, I have no idea what is happening in Supernatural now. This story is for old people, who have seen and liked the first half of this show.


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